A reader in Malta sent me this interesting article from the Times of Malta about allegations that a Maltese diplomat based in Libya gave the British important secrets back in 1971.

Thus:

Ives de Barro – working at the Maltese Embassy in Libya in 1971 – was giving the British government information about Malta’s private talks with Libya. This, at a time when the Maltese government was disputing the financial and defence agreements with Britain, while negotiating with Libya on financial aid.

Thus, the British had every interest to know what Malta and Libya were discussing. By disclosing confidential information (the said documents were all marked "Confidential – UK eyes only"), Mr de Barro was therefore helping the British set their position vis-à-vis the Maltese government…

Now let’s see what our Ms Attard Pirotta had to say on this: "The revelation of this information, as well as information relating to the part payments made, could have been avoided and is indeed unfortunate" (unfortunate?) but "it cannot be deduced… that Mr de Barro was a mole.." Oh, really? What was he then? Does that mean that Maltese diplomats may say what they want to foreign diplomats in such critical moments?

But, not to worry, we have Mr de Barro’s own word that it’s allright: "Mr de Barro’s part-time contract of service (with the Foreign Office) expired on August 31, 2009. Mr de Barro, who today is 75 years old, did not seek an extension, he proclaimed his innocence and averred once again that he did not reveal any damaging information to anyone 38 years ago". Amen.

And so Ms Pirotta simultaneously acted as prosecutor, defence, judge and absolver of sins; while our Foreign Minister doesn’t even condemn Mr de Barro’s despicable acts. The Foreign Office instead issues a deceptive press release stating that Mr de Barro was merely expressing his opinion.

As Margaret Thatcher had famously put it: "Is he one of us?"…. Then it’s OK.

I have not seen the UK Public Records Office papers concerned, nor do I know anything about the detail of the UK/Malta difficulties back in those days.

That said, it looks as if Mr de Barro has no case to answer for disloyalty, at least on the evidence put forward in this article.

First, it is clear from the language and security classification that these were not intelligence reports but rather normal FCO Chancery reporting – material diplomats send back to HQ which they hope will be of interest.

An intelligence report would have been marked Secret or Top Secret.

Confidential – UK EYES ONLY is a relatively routine classification intended to cover eg a private conversation where the substance of the issue reported and/or the fact that there had been such a conversation should not be spread beyond HMG.

What? Surely this shows that the British government did not want Malta to know about these exchanges! They must have been important!

Er, no.

Since the article shows that on least one occasion the British diplomat called on Mr de Barro (ie went to the Malta mission itself) so the fact that Mr de Barro was talking to the Brits was obvious. The other two occasions cited seem to be chance public encounters of the sort one would expect in the relatively small diplomatic community of early 1970s Tripoli. Nothing furtive or untoward.

More generally, the article does not cover the core point, namely that one of the key tasks of diplomats posted overseas is precisely to talk to each other. The fact that they do so does not in itself suggest disloyalty – on the contrary, it suggests that the people concerned are doing what they are paid to do.

It would have been important for the Brits back then to get an insight into Maltese thinking – just as it would have been important for the Malta mission to get any insights into what the Brits were thinking.

So in effect it looks as if the Brits concerned and Mr de Barro were trading views and ideas, as part of normal diplomatic work.

Hence, Question: did Mr de Barro give away too much and/or get too little? Or was he merely being a friendly and open colleague, hoping and expecting that in return he would get useful insights from the Brits down the road, maybe even on a later posting?

The article argues that he gave away ‘priceless’ information, helping London develop its policy:

"I called on Mr de Barro to ask about the results of Dr Buttigieg’s (Deputy Prime Minister) visit to Tripoli… The Maltese government were very unhappy that the Libyan navy had broken their existing connection with Malta Dry Docks… they had asked the Libyans to commit themselves to resuming their patronage of Malta Dry Docks for the future but the Libyans had declined to do this."

How the British must have relished being privy to this fact (not opinion) while negotiating with Malta! They must have been extremely grateful to Mr de Barro.

Really? How much of this was not in the Malta newspapers anyway, or otherwise common knowledge in Valletta/Tripoli?

Another sample of priceless information is the following, as reported by a Mr Sharp: "Mr de Barro told me last night that one of his first jobs when he became Chargé d’Affaires would be to ask for an interview with Major Jalud in an effort to chivvy the Libyans into paying up the remainder of a sum of stg250,000 they had promised Malta in July. Mr de Barro said that so far they had only made two payments, one of stg70,000 and the other of stg18,000. He said payments had been made on a bank to bank basis."

World scoop! Libyans reluctant to pay their debts to Malta + Malta keen to keep them to their obligations!

Big deal. So what? Nothing.

It may be that Mr de Barro was indeed a useless diplomatic operator who could not shut up and spilled various vital beans, getting nothing of consequence in return.

Or he could have been a skilled and even cynical diplomat, adapt at releasing insights and opinions of no real consequence to the gormless Brits as a wily way of building his professional credibility with other colleagues round town. We just can’t tell from this article.

It also may be that the author of the article, Dr Dalli, is reading too much into previously classified papers, assuming that because they were sent to London  and classified Confidential they must have been strategically significant. It just does not work that way.

Thus for Dr Dalli to deduce from such modest evidence that Mr de Barro was ‘despicable’ strikes me as a bit, hem, unreasonable.

But then I am a former British diplomat with an obvious reason in blowing smoke over any issue involving the UK and Malta, the more so where an obvious Maltese Mole is concerned, so this very posting shows that British perfidy has no limits.

QED.